Title : Assessing women’s health day as a community based education model
Abstract:
Background: University students face significant challenges in maintaining healthy behaviors due to financial constraints, time limitations, and inadequate access to healthcare. Community-based health events provide an accessible platform to educate students on key health domains by improving health knowledge, fostering community engagement, and addressing prevalent disparities in student health. Evaluating the impact of these events offers critical insights for enhancing campus health resources and promoting long-term healthy behaviors.
Methods: Women’s Health Day (WHD), an interactive community health education event, was held in Fall 2023 at the Florida State University. The event featured 25 stations, each focused on a specific aspect of women’s health: clinical, financial, mental, physical, or sexual. Participants who interacted with at least eight tables were invited to complete a Qualtrics survey assessing demographics, satisfaction, and perceived educational impact.
Results: Of the 327 respondents (mean age 20.14 years, 82.0% women), 92.4% were first-time attendees at WHD. Participants strongly agreed with the event's educational impact on their future health (M = 1.49, SD = 0.79), the importance of interactive and community-based events on campuses (M = 1.29, SD = 0.69), and their likelihood of attending similar events in the future (M = 1.25, SD = 0.53). Sexual health was reported to have the greatest impact, followed by mental and physical health, with significant differences across domains (p < .001). Gender identity influenced perceived impact, with cisgender participants reporting greater impact in mental, clinical, and physical health compared to gender minority participants (p < .05). Age was not associated with perceived impact (p = .391).
Conclusions: WHD serves as a model for addressing health disparities on university campuses through accessible and interactive community-based education. The event demonstrated significant benefits in promoting knowledge and awareness, particularly in sexual and mental health. Future studies should explore the longitudinal impacts, enhance engagement across all health domains, increase involvement among underrepresented groups, and tailor educational content to diverse health needs.
